Monday, May 28, 2018

Memorial Day (Decoration Day) - What is it? What's its History Why is it a Holiday?

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Memorial Day

Memorial
Day or Decoration Day is a federal holiday in the United States for
remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed
forces.[1] The holiday, which is currently observed every year on the
last Monday of May, will be held on May 28, 2018. The holiday was held
on May 30 from 1868 to 1970.[2] It marks the unofficial start of the
summer vacation season,[3] while Labor Day marks its end. The holiday,
from latest to earliest, is slightly more likely to fall on May 30, May
28 or May 25 (58 in 400 years each) than on May 27 or May 26 (57), and
slightly less likely to occur on May 31 or May 29 (56).Many
people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who
have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on
each grave in national cemeteries.Memorial
Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day – Memorial Day is a day of
remembering the men and women who died while serving, whereas Veterans
Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans.

History

The
practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers is an ancient
custom.[5] Soldiers' graves were decorated in the U.S. before[6] and
during the American Civil War.Some
believe that an annual cemetery decoration practice began before the
American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial
day" idea.[7] Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are
still held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural
areas of the American South, notably in the mountain areas. In cases
involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who
were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character
of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of
miles. People gather, put flowers on graves and renew contacts with
relatives and others. There often is a religious service and a
picnic-like "dinner on the grounds," the traditional term for a potluck
meal at a church.[7]On
June 3, 1861, Warrenton, Virginia was the location of the first Civil
War soldier's grave ever to be decorated, according to a Richmond
Times-Dispatch newspaper article in 1906.[8] In 1862, women in Savannah,
Georgia decorated Confederate soldiers' graves according to the
Savannah Republican.[9] The 1863 cemetery dedication at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, was a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead
soldiers. On July 4, 1864, ladies decorated soldiers' graves according
to local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania.[10] and Boalsburg
promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day.[11]In
April 1865, following President Abraham Lincoln's assassination,
commemorations were ubiquitous. The more than 600,000 soldiers of both
sides who died in the Civil War meant that burial and memorialization
took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during
the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken
shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military
cemeteries for the Union war dead.[12]A
decoration day observance on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina
led historian David W. Blight to claim that "African Americans invented
Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina",[13] based on accounts in
the Charleston Daily Courier and coverage by the New-York Tribune. In
2012, Blight stated that he "has no evidence" that the event in
Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the
country.[14] Accordingly, Snopes labeled the claim that the holiday
began in Charleston "false."[15]In
1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an
organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois, established
Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the
Union war dead with flowers.[16] By the 20th century, various Union and
Confederate memorial traditions, celebrated on different days, merged,
and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died
while in the military service.[1]On
May 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson designated an "official"
birthplace of the holiday by signing the presidential proclamation
naming Waterloo, New York, as the holder of the title. This action
followed House Concurrent Resolution 587, in which the 89th Congress had
officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing
Memorial Day had begun one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New
York.[17] The village credits druggist Henry C. Welles and county clerk
John B. Murray as the founders of the holiday. Snopes and Live Science
discredit the Waterloo account.

In the North

On
May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for
"Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide; he was
commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of
and for Union Civil War veterans.[7] With his proclamation, Logan
adopted the Memorial Day practice that had begun in the Southern states
three years earlier.The
first northern Memorial Day was observed on May 30, 1868. One author
claims that the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of
any particular battle.[23] According to a White House address in 2010,
the date was chosen as the optimal date for flowers to be in bloom in
the North.[24]

The northern states quickly
adopted the holiday. In 1868, memorial events were held in 183
cemeteries in 27 states, and 336 in 1869.[25] In 1871, Michigan made
"Decoration Day" an official state holiday and by 1890, every northern
state had followed suit. The ceremonies were sponsored by the Women's
Relief Corps, the women's auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic
(GAR), which had 100,000 members. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000
Union dead had been reinterred in 73 national cemeteries, located near
major battlefields and thus mainly in the South. The most famous are
Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National
Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.[26]Memorial
Day speeches became an occasion for veterans, politicians, and
ministers to commemorate the Civil War and, at first, to rehash the
"atrocities" of the enemy. They mixed religion and celebratory
nationalism for the people to make sense of their history in terms of
sacrifice for a better nation. People of all religious beliefs joined
together and the point was often made that the German and Irish soldiers
had become true Americans in the "baptism of blood" on the
battlefield.[27]Since
1868 Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has held annual Memorial Day parades
which it claims to be the nation's oldest continuously running. However,
the Memorial Day parade in Rochester, Wisconsin, predates Doylestown's
by one year.[28][29]In the South

The
U.S. National Park Service[30] and numerous scholars attribute the
beginning of a Memorial Day practice in the South to the ladies of
Columbus, Georgia.[31][32][33][34][35][36][37] On April 25, 1866, women
in Columbus, Mississippi laid flowers on the graves of both the Union
and Confederate dead in the city's cemetery.[38] The early southern
Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and
their families to honor the dead and tend to local cemeteries.[39]Historians
acknowledge the Ladies Memorial Association played a key role in these
rituals of preservation of Confederate "memory."[40] Various dates
ranging from April 25 to mid-June were adopted in different Southern
states. Across the South, associations were founded, many by women, to
establish and care for permanent cemeteries for the Confederate dead,
organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor appropriate monuments as a
permanent way of remembering the Confederate dead. The most important
of these was the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which grew from
17,000 members in 1900 to nearly 100,000 women by World War I. They were
"strikingly successful at raising money to build Confederate monuments,
lobbying legislatures and Congress for the reburial of Confederate
dead, and working to shape the content of history textbooks."[41]In
1868, some southerners appended the label "Confederate" to what they
originally called "Memorial Day" after northerners co-opted the
holiday.[42] The tradition of observances were linked to the South, they
served as the prototype for the national day of memory embraced by the
nation in 1868.[30][43]By
1890, there was a shift from the emphasis on honoring specific soldiers
to a public commemoration of the Confederate south.[39] Changes in the
ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a
symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, David
Blight argues, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with
the Confederate.[44]At Gettysburg

Starting
in 1868, the ceremonies and Memorial Day address at Gettysburg National
Park became nationally known. In July 1913, veterans of the United
States and Confederate armies gathered in Gettysburg to commemorate the
fifty-year anniversary of the Civil War's bloodiest and most famous
battle.[45]The
four-day "Blue-Gray Reunion" featured parades, re-enactments, and
speeches from a host of dignitaries, including President Woodrow Wilson,
the first Southerner elected to the White House after the War.[citation
needed] James Heflin of Alabama gave the main address.[citation needed]
Heflin was a noted orator; His choice as Memorial Day speaker was
criticized, as he was opposed for his support of segregation; however,
his speech was moderate in tone and stressed national unity and
goodwill, gaining him praise from newspapers.Since
the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg occurred on November 19, that day
(or the closest weekend) has been designated as their own local
memorial day that is referred to as Remembrance Day.[46]Name and date

The
preferred name for the holiday gradually changed from "Decoration Day"
to "Memorial Day," which was first used in 1882.[47] Memorial Day did
not become the more common name until after World War II, and was not
declared the official name by Federal law until 1967.[48] On June 28,
1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved four
holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a
specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend.[49]
The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the
last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in
1971.[49] After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply, all
50 states adopted Congress' change of date within a few years.Memorial
Day endures as a holiday which most businesses observe because it marks
the unofficial beginning of summer. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)
and Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) advocate returning
to the original date, although the significance of the date is tenuous.
The VFW stated in a 2002 Memorial Day Address:Changing
the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very
meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed a lot to the general
public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.[50]

Starting
in 1987 Hawaii's Senator Daniel Inouye, a World War II veteran,
introduced a measure to return Memorial Day to its traditional date.
Inouye continued introducing the resolution until his death in 2012.[51]20th centuryOn
Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the
top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position,
where it remains only until noon.[52] It is then raised to full-staff
for the remainder of the day.[53]

The
half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women
who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon, their memory
is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in
vain, but to rise up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty
and justice for all.The
National Memorial Day Concert takes place[when?] on the west lawn of
the United States Capitol.[54] The concert is broadcast on PBS and NPR.
Music is performed, and respect is paid to the men and women who gave
their lives for their country.For
many Americans, the central event is attending one of the thousands of
parades held on Memorial Day in large and small cities all over the
country.[according to whom?] Most of these feature marching bands and an
overall military theme with the National Guard and other servicemen
participating along with veterans and military vehicles from various
wars.[citation needed]One
of the longest-standing traditions is the running of the Indianapolis
500, an auto race which has been held in conjunction with Memorial Day
since 1911.[55] Originally it was held on Memorial Day itself, and since
1974 it runs on the Sunday preceding the Memorial Day holiday. Since
1961 NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 has been held during Memorial Day weekend,
and has also been held on the previous Sunday since 1974.[citation
needed] Since 1976 The Memorial Tournament golf event has been held on
or close to the Memorial Day weekend. The final of the NCAA Division I
Men's Lacrosse Championship is held on Memorial Day.In 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, asking people to stop and remember at 3:00 PM.[56]PoppiesRemembrance poppyIn
1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John
McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the
poem, "In Flanders Fields". Its opening lines refer to the fields of
poppies that grew among the soldiers' graves in Flanders.

In
1918, inspired by the poem, YWCA worker Moina Michael attended a YWCA
Overseas War Secretaries' conference wearing a silk poppy pinned to her
coat and distributed over two dozen more to others present. In 1920, the
National American Legion adopted it as their official symbol of
remembrance.[57]As civil religious holidayScholars,
following the lead of sociologist Robert Bellah, often make the
argument that the United States has a secular "civil religion" – one
with no association with any religious denomination or viewpoint – that
has incorporated Memorial Day as a sacred event. With the Civil War, a
new theme of death, sacrifice and rebirth enters the civil religion.
Memorial Day gave ritual expression to these themes, integrating the
local community into a sense of nationalism. The American civil
religion, in contrast to that of France, was never anticlerical or
militantly secular; in contrast to Britain, it was not tied to a
specific denomination, such as the Church of England. The Americans
borrowed from different religious traditions so that the average
American saw no conflict between the two, and deep levels of personal
motivation were aligned with attaining national goals.[62]Memorial
Day has been called a "modern cult of the dead". It incorporates
Christian themes of sacrifice while uniting citizens of various
faiths.[63]In film, literature, and musicFilmsMemorial Day (2012) is a war film starring James Cromwell, Jonathan Bennett, and John Cromwell.Logan Lucky (2017) starring Channing TatumMusicCharles
Ives's symphonic poem Decoration Day depicted the holiday as he
experienced it in his childhood, with his father's band leading the way
to the town cemetery, the playing of "Taps" on a trumpet, and a livelier
march tune on the way back to the town. It is frequently played with
three other Ives works based on holidays, as the second movement of A
Symphony: New England Holidays.PoetryPoems commemorating Memorial Day include:Michael Anania's "Memorial Day" (1994)[64]Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Decoration Day" (1882)[65]Joyce Kilmer's "Memorial Day"

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